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Sunday, May 18, 2014

LOL! You totally called it on that chapter cover, Doughnut Gunso. Looks like Nagi grew a bit. She's at least up to Hayate's Neck right now if this picture is to be believed.

Synopsis: Athena finally confronts Ikusa on
murder island and he calls her a “blonde mourning girl.” He’s apparently lost
his memories, so she tries to help him get them back… with her magic memory
recover hammer conjured from hammerspace. Of course, Ikusa effortlessly
destroys it, because he’s right. Only an idiot would stand still and let that
thing hit him. Ikusa calls Athena a “well-endowed exhibitionist girl” as Athena
conjures several of her memory recover hammers to “attack” Ikusa. After much
couple-bickering and after calling Athena a “transformation-tis drill-hair girl,
Athena notices that she’s got only 10:23 minutes left in her original form and
asks Ikusa to just let her return his memories and tells him about how he might
have saved her ten years ago from the Royal Garden and that he might have taken
the Royal power… or someone else might have.

I get the feeling that Ikusa is teasing her on purpose.

Ikusa
remembers how he saved little Athena from the Royal Garden through a flashback
and how he saw Yukariko outside as she was heading into the Royal Garden
herself stating that she had a friend there “waiting to be rescued.”

Only have a used Wii myself, so a PS3 wouldn't be too bad.

Synopsis: Athena finally confronts Ikusa on
murder island and he calls her a “blonde mourning girl.” He’s apparently lost
his memories, so she tries to help him get them back… with her magic memory
recover hammer conjured from hammerspace. Of course, Ikusa effortlessly
destroys it, because he’s right. Only an idiot would stand still and let that
thing hit him. Ikusa calls Athena a “well-endowed exhibitionist girl” as Athena
conjures several of her memory recover hammers to “attack” Ikusa. After much
couple-bickering and after calling Athena a “transformation-tis drill-hair girl,
Athena notices that she’s got only 10:23 minutes left in her original form and
asks Ikusa to just let her return his memories and tells him about how he might
have saved her ten years ago from the Royal Garden and that he might have taken
the Royal power… or someone else might have.

Ikusa is actually Kenjiro Hata

Ikusa
remembers how he saved little Athena from the Royal Garden through a flashback
and how he saw Yukariko outside as she was heading into the Royal Garden
herself stating that she had a friend there “waiting to be rescued.”

However,
Ikusa says he has a hard time remembering, so Athena suggests just forcing him
to remember with her memory recover hammers, but Ikusa counters her with “Is
there any reason to cling to old memories?” At this, Athena breaks down
emotionally and relays how Ikusa epically saved her from the Royal Garden by
overcoming all of its trials at the risk of his own life, but Ikusa brushes it
off as just “ho-hum, I dun remember. I save people every day. For you, it was
an important day coz I totally saved your life, but for me… it was a Tuesday.”

Ikusa: For you, it was the day I saved your life. For me... it was Tuesday

More
flashbacks as Ikusa apparently tried to hail a policeman after meeting Yukariko
since he needed to get Athena to the hospital. This results in the policeman
mistaking him for a kidnapper since he was all bloodied and carrying a huge
sword. Thus, Athena is left behind with the Shirouzakura there in front of her
as Ikusa probably scooted off to evade the police.

Athena reallv loves that Gate of Babylon weapon spam magic.

The chapter
culminates with Athena trembling as she wholeheartedly pours out her feelings…
of gratefulness to Ikusa.

Cute magazine cover here.

Review: This was a very interesting chapter.
Lots of plot and Doughnut Gunso totally called it on the chapter cover with
Nagi and Hayate and some useless side characters there even though Nagi is not
relevant to the plot at the moment – but she’s there because she’s Nagi, ok?

Ok,
plot-related matters a plenty in this arc. Most significantly, lots of things
have been revealed about the Royal Garden and Ikusa and Athena’s experiences
there. So apparently, Ikusa rescued Athena from the Royal Garden and Athena was
injured in the process. It was Ikusa who took Shirouzakura out of the Garden
and just outside, Yukariko was waiting to get inside the Garden. She also
recognized Athena and states that she’s been missing for a long time… how long
exactly is not stated, but probably a year to a few months given that she was
still outside the Royal Garden when she and Mikado were conspiring to find a
candidate and Mikado chose Hayate… I’ll leave the finer details to you RG
historians out there. Personally not too interested in the tiny details myself.

Yukariko is still significant to the plot long after she's dead.

It’s pretty
apparent then that Yukariko might have stolen the Royal Power herself, but she
says that she was going into the garden to “rescue a friend.” The plot thickens
and while a lot of details about the Royal Garden has been revealed in this one
chapter, there are still tons of unanswered questions… but let us leave that
for another day… for now…

Also, I
think it’s pretty clear that Ikusa never lost his memories in the first place,
he’s just being purposely dense about it. He kind of reminds me of Archer from
Fate/Stay Night that way.

Speculation Corner: BOOM! Headshot! You cannot tell me I
didn’t see this ship coming from chapter 262 away! Ok fine, it’s just
circumstantial at the moment, but you have to admit that Ikusa and Athena seem
like a pretty good match for each other.

·Both
are more emotionally mature than any of the other characters in the series.

·Athena
is the magical powerhouse while Ikusa is the physical powerhouse of the series.
Great match!

·Athena
is sophisticated, beautiful and well-endowed, and Ikusa is a real man’s man.

·As
someone else points out, they totally look like a couple bickering when they
fight.

·I
mentioned this before, but Ikusa and Athena actually have a non-tragic past
together – even if it was just for a short time. People who have been through
life and death together often develop a strong emotional bond – and I totally
saw this happening between them when Ikusa went off to rescue Athena in chapter
262-263. (refer to my photo
essay).

·Athena
went to all the trouble of wasting her precious 12 or so minutes of being in
her original form just to return Ikusa’s memories so she could say “thank you.”
To this, lordcloudx says “thank you, that’s all folks.”

Hata is asking YOU, the reader, this question through Ikusa.

Royal
Garden-related matters: If Yukariko really was going in to save a friend, then
this puts a monkey wrench on my theory that she “blessed Nagi with luck” using
the Royal Power Then again, this “friend” she was going to save could have been
Nagi as well. Also, it puts another hole in my theory that Mikado wants to use the Royal Garden to revive Yukariko, since Yukariko was alive and well when Mikado was scheming to get into the Royal Garden together with Athena.

Finally,
remember how Ikusa said “is there any reason to cling to old memories?” I believe
this supports my theory that Hayate x Athena = tragic past while Ikusa x Athena
= hopeful past.